About the Nour Foundation

Mission Statement

The Nour Foundation explores meaning and commonality in human experience by adopting a multidisciplinary and integrative approach to the study of principles and values that universally engender greater understanding, tolerance, and unity among human beings worldwide.

Objective

Founded in 1985, the Nour Foundation is a public charitable and nongovernmental organization in special consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Through a multidisciplinary and integrative approach that blends the sciences and the humanities, the Foundation seeks to study and explore core principles and values that universally promote a greater spirit of mutual understanding, tolerance, and unity among human beings.

The conception of the Foundation was inspired by the inclusive philosophy of the late Ostad Elahi, a contemporary thinker, jurist, and musician who devoted the whole of his life to investigating the age-old existential questions of humankind: Who are we? Where have we come from? Why are we here? And where are we headed? Such questions have been discussed for millennia, with as many proposed answers and variations as there are peoples and cultures.

The Foundation’s broad and diverse activities highlight the importance and value of contemplating such questions of meaning and purpose independently and objectively in today’s modern world. For the pursuit of these questions and the answers we ascribe to them not only inform our perspective and shape our convictions, but to a great extent also frame our intentions, decisions, and actions in daily life.

It is not until we have reflected upon and arrived at some form of subjective paradigm to these questions that we can begin the process of self-discovery with respect to the meaning and purpose of our lives. The central goal of the Nour Foundation, therefore, is to stimulate an objective and intelligent discourse on existential questions from an unbiased and interdisciplinary perspective that is rooted not only in theories, but in shared commonality of personal experience as well.